Tuesday, October 09, 2012Last Update: 11:16 AM PT

Romance Ends Ugly, on the Internet

BROOKLYN (CN) - A young Russian woman claims in court that her ex-boyfriend posted semi-nude photos of her on an escort service website without her permission, causing immigration officials to suspect her of prostitution. Ruzilya Khusnutdinova, 24, sued lead defendant Vladimir Dranovsky, a 41-year old dentist, in Kings County Supreme Court. She also sued Primal Ventures, a for-profit corporation that hosts escortsexguide and stripclubnetwork websites, and its owner-operator Paul J. Brown. Khusnutdinova says she came to the United States legally in June 2009. In Russia, she was a student at Kazan Chemical University majoring in biochemistry. She says she met Dranovsky in August 2009, after they "started spending more time together," he told her "that he would change her status to F-1, and that it would allow her to stay in the United States longer and live with him." She moved in with him, and he took the "semi-nude" photos of her in a hotel room in Lake George, she says. But she broke up with him in the spring of 2011 because he was cheating on her and had become verbally and physically violent, Khusnutdinova claims. When she asked him for her passport, visa and immigration documents, which she left in his Brooklyn apartment, she says, Dranvosky demanded $4,000 for the documents, then "continued to harass her, calling her names, stalking her and demanding money for the passport." She claims Dranvosky also "was threatening her with physical harm, and that he can 'deport' her." She says she filed a police report and received an order of protection against Dranovsky, and that the state filed criminal charges against him and convicted him. The police returned her passport. In May this year, she says, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers "visited" her, showed her the "semi-nude pictures taken at Lake George almost a year ago, and questioned her if she was engaged in prostitution in New York." "The ICE officers informed Ruzilya that the pictures, together with some profound [sic] comments, were published on the website www.escortsexguide.com, advertising Ruzilya as an escort and prostitute." She claims that Dranovsky posted the photos and the false description of her as a prostitute, and that defendants Primal Ventures and Paul Brown have refused to remove them from the site. She seeks damages for negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation and civil rights violations, and wants the postings removed from the Internet. She is represented by Alena Shautsova, of Brooklyn.